Sec. 6: EC2 Instance Storage

You have just terminated an EC2 instance in us-east-1a, and its attached EBS volume is now available. Your teammate tries to attach it to an EC2 instance in us-east-1b but he can't. What is a possible cause for this?

• He's missing IAM permissions

• EBS volumes are locked to an AWS Region

• EBS volumes are locked to an Availability Zone

You have launched an EC2 instance with two EBS volumes, the Root volume type and the other EBS volume type to store the data. A month later you are planning to terminate the EC2 instance. What's the default behavior that will happen to each EBS volume?

• Both the root volume type and the EBS volume type will be deleted

• The Root volume type will be deleted and the EBS volume type will not be deleted

• The root volume type will not be deleted and the EBS volume type will be deleted

• Both the root volume type and the EBS volume type will not be deleted

Answer explanation

By default, the Root volume type will be deleted as its Delete On Termination attribute is checked by default. Any other EBS volume types will not be deleted as its Delete On Termination attribute is disabled by default.

You can use an AMI in N.Virginia Region us-east-1 to launch an EC2 instance in any AWS Region.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

AMIs are built for a specific AWS Region, they're unique for each AWS Region. You can't launch an EC2 instance using an AMI in another AWS Region, but you can copy the AMI to the target AWS Region and then use it to create your EC2 instances.

Which of the following EBS volume types can be used as boot volumes when you create EC2 instances?

• gp2, gp3, io1, io2

• gp2, gp3, st1, sc1

• io1, io2, st1, sc1

Answer explanation

When creating EC2 instances, you can only use the following EBS volume types as boot volumes: gp2, gp3, io1, io2, and Magnetic (Standard).

What is EBS Multi-Attach?

• Attach the same EBS volume to multiple EC2 instances in multiple AZs

• Attach multiple EBS volumes in the same AZ to the same EC2 instance

• Attach the same EBS volume to multiple EC2 instances in the same AZ

• Attach multiple EBS volumes in multiple AZs to the same EC2 instance

Answer explanation

Using EBS Multi-Attach, you can attach the same EBS volume to multiple EC2 instances in the same AZ. Each EC2 instance has full read/write permissions.

You have provisioned an 8TB gp2 EBS volume and you are running out of IOPS. What is NOT a way to increase performance?

• Mount EBS volumes in RAID 0

• Change to an io1 volume type

• Increase the EBS volume size

Answer explanation

EBS IOPS peaks at 16,000 IOPS or equivalent 5334 GB

You have a fleet of EC2 instances distributes across AZs that process a large data set. What do you recommend to make the same data to be accessible as an NFS drive to all of your EC2 instances?

• Use an Instance Store

• Use EBS

• Use EFS

Answer explanation

EFS is a network file system (NFS) that allows you to mount the same file system on EC2 instances that are in different AZs.

You would like to have a high-performance local cache for your application hosted on an EC2 instance. You don't mind losing the cache upon the termination of your EC2 instance. Which storage mechanism do you recommend as a Solutions Architect?

• Instance Store

• EBS

• EFS

Answer explanation

EC2 Instance Store provides the best disk I/O performance.

You are running a high-performance database that requires an IOPS of 310,000 for its underlying storage. What do you recommend?

• Use an EC2 Instance Store

• Use an EBS gp2 drive

• Use an EBS io1 drive

• Use an EBS io2 Block Express drive

Answer explanation

You can run a database on an EC2 instance that uses an Instance Store, but you'll have a problem that the data will be lost if the EC2 instance is stopped (it can be restarted without problems). One solution is that you can set up a replication mechanism on another EC2 instance with an Instance Store to have a standby copy. Another solution is to set up backup mechanisms for your data. It's all up to you how you want to set up your architecture to validate your requirements. In this use case, it's around IOPS, so we have to choose an EC2 Instance Store.